Getting catty
by ZPumpkin
Summary: It's important for team mates to know everything about each other. Their fighting styles, how good they are at math, their sleeping schedules, if they like to drink milk and chase mice. Best to be thorough.


Ruby walked into her team's room, dropped an armful of books and papers on her desk, and saw a bowl of milk on Blake's bed. She started towards it, curious. Yang, hiding behind the curtains on Ruby's own bed, grabbed her shoulder.

"Did you see Blake?" she whispered.

"She was right behind me," Ruby replied. "What are you doing?"

Yang said, "Get up here!" and hid behind the curtains again. Ruby stared for a moment, confused.

"Up!" Yang ordered, grabbing Ruby again and pulling her onto the bed.

"Yang, what's going on?" Ruby asked. It was too dark to see each other, but her sister was definitely grinning.

"Shhh!" Yang shifted the curtains an inch to look outside. The door opened, Blake walked in. She started towards her bed and saw the bowl. A pause, then she took the bowl, opened the window, and poured the milk out. She left after that, probably to return it to the cafeteria.

Yang pouted and buried her face in Ruby's pillow. Having had enough of hiding on her own bed, in her own room, for reasons she didn't understand, Ruby jumped off.

"We need backup," Yang said, following. "Come on!"

She left immediately, leaving the younger sister in the room to wonder. Curiosity and slight concern made Ruby run after her. Knowing Yang, this was probably a joke of some kind, but Yang could go overboard sometimes.

Yang had crossed the hall and was pushing Ren out of his team's room, ignoring his questioning silence. She saw Ruby standing near and pulled her inside. Ruby was seated near Nora and the door slammed shut.

"Bye Ren!" Nora shouted.

"I have brought you all here for a very important mission," Yang told them. "We must discover more about our friend and teammate, Blake Belladonna!"

Ruby asked, "Can't we just talk to her?" but Yang shushed her.

"Not for this. This is a matter of special investigation." Yang made a coy face and wiggled her fingers above her head, where one might expect some extra ears to be. Specifically, where Blake had a set of cat ears beneath her bow. Ruby raised a brow and Nora squirmed excitedly.

"What if she has kitty powers," Nora said. "Or if she has a tail. What if her parents were tigers!"

Yang thought about this. "Yes? No and no. We need to find out how cat like she is! Also, she does not have a tail, I think we would have seen it by now. And I don't know about her parents, but they were probably a big cat of some kind. Not important right now."

Then Yang pulled out an elaborate chart of crude, cat eared stickmen with various objects: string, milk, a mouse, a dog, and a box. "I've made a list of tests that we should do." She crossed off the milk carton drawing. "The milk was a failure, but plenty more to go!"

"What about fish?" Nora asked, apparently able to read the mess. Ruby was still trying to figure out why the mouse had wings.

"She really likes tuna," Ruby answered.

"See! We already have some proof, but we need more!"

Ruby fidgeted, "This seems a bit weird. And proof for what? We already know she's a Faunus."

"Proof for the scientific process!" Yang pounded her fist into her open hand. "We can't prove she's like a cat until we have evidence." Ruby and Nora stared at her and she crossed her arms. "I payed attention in our science class. Besides, it's not like we're doing anything that could hurt her. We're just giving her presents."

"String would be a horrible present," Ruby pointed out, but Nora whooped and it was two against one. She left with them to go find the test items. Yang hadn't quite got that far yet.

The first thing they tried was the box. Yang wouldn't explain why this was a test but was giggling to herself while they set it up near Blake's library seat. Smuggling the box passed the librarian had been strange, Ruby stuffing it up her cloak and Nora pressing right against her to hide the shape. Hopefully they hadn't been too suspicious, but the old lady was shooting them stink eyes whenever she saw them.

They put a book from Blake's favorite series in the box and hid behind the shelves, looking through gaps in the books. Several times other students had to be chased off before they could ruin things. Ruby didn't ask why any of them wanted to sit in a cardboard box that smelled like cleaner.

Eventually Blake arrived. She looked at the box, pulled the book out, and sat in her usual seat to read. The three disappointed 'testers' had to wait an hour before Blake moved on so they could retrieve the box. As they argued about how to get it out, Nora suggesting they just chuck it out the window, there came a cough from behind them. The librarian had come.

They left much later, ears full of property respect lectures and short one box.

Next on Yang's list was the mouse. Finding one proved to be harder than expected.

"I swear I saw one here yesterday!" Yang said, shifting boxes in a closet.

"I dunno, the cats here are like ninjas." Nora made clawing motions with her hands. "I saw one leap fifty feet and get a bird mid flight!"

Ruby prodded the closet ceiling with her scythe. She hadn't stepped into the closet since Yang told them about the mouse, which made Yang snicker every so often. "There are cats in Beacon?" she asked, much more interested in potentially cute kittens.

"I haven't seen em'." Yang muttered, shaking a crate. Something in it made glassy clinks. "This place is a bust, let's go try somewhere else."

They left the closet alone, allowing the very patient janitor who had been waiting for them to get on with his work.

"You think we could find one in the Emerald Forest?" Yang suggested.

"Ooh, Grim mice!" Nora clapped. "You could throw them like ninja stars. Squeaky little ninja stars of whiskered doom!"

Ruby shuddered and held her weapon close. "I don't really want to go in there right now. Especially not to find Grim mice."

"What's your problem with mice anyway?" Yang poked her sister, grinning. "Afraid of their little feet?"

"They have sharp teeth!" Ruby said. "And they're hard to hit!"

Yang, caring big sister that she was, did her best mouse impression until they ran into Weiss.

"You got any string?" Yang asked, dragging her along for the walk, ignoring questions of what the awful squealing noises were. "Or yarn. Anything like that."

"I suppose I do, though I won't give you any if you don't unhand me." Yang let go, and Weiss dusted off her dress. "Really, a little courtesy wouldn't kill you. 'Hey Weiss, nice day isn't it?'"

"It's a great day!" Nora answered. Weiss made a flat face, turned, and started to leave.

"What about the string?" Yang called.

"What are you going to use it for?"

"Scientific tests!"

Weiss turned around. "Oh, this I have to see."

It was nearly night time and Ruby, Nora, Yang, and Weiss were cramped onto Ruby's bunk. Ruby could hear the ropes that held the bed stretching and asked, "Did we need everyone up here at once?"

"Sure," Yang said dismissively.

"I want to see what passes for science with you three," Weiss said. "So far, I'm not surprised and not impressed."

Nora just munched on a bag of popcorn.

Blake entered, yawning, to find a length of yarn dangling right in front of her, it's ball delicately balanced on the door frame. The slight movement made it sway, back and forth. Blake's eyes traced it as four other, hidden pairs watched her.

When she batted the ball, Yang nearly squealed. Instead of playing with it though, Blake picked it up and dropped it on Weiss's bed, not noticing the straining ropes and drawn curtains on Ruby's bunk just above. She gathered her toothbrush and night things and left.

"Why does she assume it's my yarn?" Weiss demanded.

"Because it is your yarn?" Ruby said. "And it is very white." Weiss huffed.

The ropes gave a final groan and they fell a short, scream filled fall onto Weiss's bed. The group tumbled out into a grumbling, dizzy pile. There were slight bruises where they hit the floor and Weiss's bedpost had a crack in it. Weiss insisted they use more ropes for Ruby's bunk and fix her bed before they left.

"What have we got left?" Ruby asked, trying to remember Yang's diagram. "We tried milk, and string."

"And the box," Nora added.

Weiss snorted. "Box? What were you expecting her to do, crawl in it like some cartoon kitten?"

Yang waved her off. "I'd like to try the mouse, but I have no idea where we'd find one at this hour."

"Or ever," Ruby pitched in.

"This is a high quality school. Why would they let rodents run about," Weiss said.

"Practice for the school cats!" Nora replied as though it were obvious.

"Are there cats here?"

"Doesn't matter! We only have a few more hours before this is all pointless. We need to hurry!" Yang picked up her pace, making the other four half run to keep up.

"What happens in a few hours?" asked Ruby.

Yang shrugged. "We all go to bed and find something better to do tomorrow."

"Children, all of you," Weiss muttered.

They searched an hour more and found nothing they needed. No mouse, no dogs, and no catnip. Yang's catnip idea was met with mixed reactions. Nora thought it was great, but Ruby and Weiss were against it.

"What's the worst that could happen?" was Yang's defense.

Ruby tried to imagine Blake on catnip, being hyperactive and a little crazy, and found that she couldn't. She chose to read this as a bad sign. Weiss didn't think it was healthy to give catnip to people, no matter if they had cat ears.

Tired, their search frustrated, the group turned in for bed. Nora left to her own room, already telling an exaggerated version of their adventures to her team. It seemed to start with an army of Grim mice. Ruby lead her teammates into their own room.

It took a second for the sight to register with them. Blake was on her back, in her bed, slapping at a ball of yarn to keep it in the air. By her side was a half empty cup of milk.

Yang made a strange gargling noise and Blake looked up. "It's late," she told them. She put the yarn away and finished the milk.

"What were you doing?" Ruby asked.

"My night time exercises. I usually do them when you all are asleep. I got tired of waiting."

Weiss sighed, shook her head, and climbed into her bed without a word.

"Why do you wait for us to sleep?"

"I wouldn't want any of you to get the wrong impression of Faunus," Blake said simply. "If humans saw me doing that, they might think I was actually a cat." She rolled over and closed her eyes.

Yang was still frozen by the door. She came out of it slowly, with little blinks and a shake.

"I think," she said, sounding awed. "I think Blake just pranked us."

Ruby nodded and guided her sister to her bed. "Just go to sleep, Yang. It will be better in the morning."

Yang in bed, still stunned, Ruby pulled herself into her own bed. There was a squeak beneath her. She reached down and pulled out a squishy mouse. It hit the wall a second later, Ruby letting out a little shriek.

Blake stirred, picked up the rubber mouse squeaky toy, and put it next to her glass. "I wondered where I left that," she said.


End file.
